by Ryan Schow
“Is that so?”
“They’re up on the hill inside the USF Lone Mountain campus and they’re maybe one sixty, one seventy of them.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Rider asked, suspicious.
“Because they’re going to attack this facility with Molotov Cocktails in less than four hours, and if you aren’t prepared, they’re going to run you the hell over.”
Rider felt his heart jump. A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck. Suddenly he was crossing his arms, thinking he needed to ward off this sudden chill.
“How do you know this?” he asked.
“Because my son, whom I thought was dead, is running the entire operation. This is his army and he’s adamant about breaking you and this compound.”
“Why?”
“Because he can. For him it’s a preemptive measure. Like taking out the competition before they realize they’re even competing.”
“What are we competing for?” Rider asked on the tail end of a yawn.
“Life.”
“That’s twisted.”
“Yeah, well this group calls themselves a clan and they are mostly comprised of gamers. Guys who were your basement warriors, your hackers, your anti-social nerds. These are the kind of guys who lived for Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons.”
“You’re talking about…video games?”
“Yes.”
Shaking his head, thinking about something that was nagging at him, Rider said, “Why in the hell would you turn on your own son? Especially to us? I mean, Jesus Christ, Gunderson, we just exiled you from our community. And not nicely in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Because you don’t kill pregnant ladies or children.”
“Okay,” Rider said, realizing Gunderson wasn’t playing. He watched the man’s expression change. Was he worried about Indigo? “This is your son, you say?”
“On paper, he tells me. He also says I’m a fossil, the relic of a bygone era and free to piss off whenever I see fit.”
“But he’s your son.”
“The last time I saw him, before he ran away, I tried to choke him to death.”
Rider took a deep breath, stared at the man through the light of a three quarter moon, then said, “Do you have any allegiance to anything?”
“Whatever he used to be, that boy is no longer my son. He knows he’ll be killing innocents, including women and children, and he can only think of them as casualties of war. Like he refuses to even consider them human. If I have an allegiance to anything, it’s to change. I can’t be this person anymore. I don’t support this.”
“Why should I believe you?” Rider asked.
“In four hours,” Gunderson said, his look solemn, rueful almost, “it won’t matter what you believe. The war will be kicking down your front door and then you’ll know I was telling the truth. That I am telling the truth.”
After a moment’s consternation, Rider said, “Alright then, come inside.”
Rex and Indigo were standing at the other end of the courtyard, watching. They’d been alerted as well. When Rider saw them, he said, “Get Jagger and Stanton. Meet us in the War Room.”
Within twenty minutes, Gunderson made clear to Rex, Rider, Jagger, Stanton and Indigo Lisandro’s battle plans, their sheer numbers and the general layout of the occupied parts of Lone Mountain.
Per Rider’s instructions, Cincinnati was working with Sarah and Lenna in getting everyone up and preparing them for an immediate evacuation. Rowan and the vets dispersed the weapons to every available hand, made sure they had ammo then secured the fortress from on high.
By two a.m. everyone was awake, alert and ready to move on a moment’s notice, but not a single wick burned with flame, and not a single person but Cincinnati spoke. She was in charge of making sure the group knew both evacuation routes. They’d gathered in the front entrance, the one they’d boarded up and blocked off two months ago. Rowan and his team were now pulling down everything that secured the front entrance from outside penetration.
They needed a second way out, just in case…
Leaving the War Room to escort Gunderson out, when it was just the two of them, Rider said, “If you’re lying to me on this, with my last breath I swear I will find you and I’ll pull your eyes out with my bare hands, and then I’ll beat you to death the slow, hard, sick way.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“But if you’re right, and if you want, then I’ll make sure you have a place within our group. You promise me you’re dedicated to living a more principled life and I promise you a home here, with us.”
“Your people won’t like it.”
“You’re saving our lives tonight,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a hard sell. Also, it’s worth mentioning, I sent scouts to the hospital where you say you slaughtered The Ophidian Horde, and it checks out.”
“Did you doubt me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That made you check. And now that makes you trust me, which is what you need to do to survive. I may be among the men,” Gunderson continued. “When you go on the offensive, wherever I am, I’ll join you, but not a moment more. So please don’t kill me in the process.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Encouraging,” the former enforcer said, turning into the night and hurrying back to Lone Mountain.
Back in the War Room, with the drapes shut and by the light of now a single candle, Rider looked his kill squad in the faces and said, “If Gunderson looks like he’s turning even halfway, he gets shot first, got it?”
“Got it,” they said in unison.
“But if he does what he says, then you must protect him like he’s one of us. We don’t know where he might later be useful.”
“He’s not one of us, though,” Indigo said.
“If he’s right and this saves our lives, then he will be. I made him that promise and I expect you’ll trust my judgment on this matter if I’m forced to keep it.”
“Let’s blow up that bridge when we cross it,” Stanton said.
For the next thirty minutes, they game-planned this scenario, but Rider could see everyone’s respective sphincters tightening. Sometimes you can’t overthink a plan enough. When you’re out of time and enemies are encroaching, you need to rely on your instincts to fill in the blanks when it’s most necessary.
“The first thing they tell you is the plan can go sour inside of a few minutes,” Rider said, changing tact. “Keep your heads together, watch your six and don’t panic. I’ll rally the troops if that happens, and if something happens to me, then Jagger is in command, followed by Rex, Stanton and Indigo. Any questions?”
No one said anything.
The first Molotov Cocktail hit the school fifteen minutes later, which was an hour and a half early. Meaning the plan was already derailed, the building was on fire and everyone was scrambling to get out. Specifically Rider’s kill squad.
Chapter Twenty-Six
After giving Six a proper burial, Nick, Marcus, Bailey and the remaining eight made the short walk from Hwy 92 to Hwy 82 which ran parallel to the 101, but would give them the cleanest route into San Francisco.
They made good time as they headed up through San Mateo and Burlingame, and into Lomita Park. By that time, they were hungry and thirsty, and Marcus felt the kids’ energy waning. They still had plenty of daylight left to cure those ails, especially with four competent adults now rather than one.
By the time the sun was making its slow westerly arc, they’d scavenged up enough food for all of them, and Maria found several acceptable rooms at the squat, two story Ritz Inn. It was the kind of place that looked like maybe once upon a time it rented out rooms by the hour, (It’ll be an extra $5 for plastic sheets and baby wipes), but maybe that was just Nick being cynical.
The Ritz ended up being alright. The food was good, the beds were soft and the carpet didn’t smell like dead people or ass. They slept hard, then met outside just after day break the next
morning.
Maria asked how they slept and Bailey said, “Best rest in days.”
“Me, too,” Maria echoed. She took Bailey’s hand, gave it a squeeze and said, “Thank you for what you did. Trying to save us when we needed it.”
Bailey said, “That was mostly Marcus and Nick. I’m not meticulous with my shotgun the way some guys are with their guns, but Nick is a good shot and Marcus can split a mosquito’s poop chute down the middle from a hundred yards out.”
Everyone in ear shot started laughing, but Maria was trying to understand what Bailey just said. Perhaps she’d been a bit too vulgar.
“I’m just saying you should thank Marcus and Nick,” she said.
“Oh, okay.”
She thanked the two men, who somewhat stubbornly accepted her appreciation, then they hit the road as one unit. It was just after they passed the Honda dealership that they noticed someone following them. A vagrant. Well, a worse looking vagrant than normal since, technically they were all vagrants now.
Nick said, “I think we’ve got an admirer. Came out of the Super 8, which looks a hell of a lot nicer than where we stayed.”
“Whiner,” Marcus said.
“Not whining,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Just saying.”
When Nick turned around, the guy was gone. He had that look in his eye, though. That hunger for trouble. Or maybe he was just some dude with scrambled eggs for brains. They’d been seeing this sort of thing all the way there. People wandering around in the streets, fascinated with lint, picking their teeth with broken bottles, crapping on the sidewalks, scratching their nuts while giving a street side sermon to rats.
It was impossible to measure the toll this war had taken on humanity. It used to be about the dead, the loss of power, the devastation in the cities. Then it became about murderous packs of heathens, rogue military installations, and imprisonment. Now Nick saw the mental strain it placed on the normal men, women and children who survived.
By all rights, even though Maria was strange and her kids were a bit unemotional and unresponsive, they were all well behaved. No one was suggesting they eat dinner in a toilet or watch Seinfeld reruns on TV’s that didn’t work.
They spoke very little as they walked, but it was early and everyone was probably tired and irritable. That could be why they missed the guy—the one hiding just around the corner of the Wendy’s restaurant. It was the same guy Nick had seen, but by then it was too late.
A couple of the kids were behind them, dragging pianos as Maria called it, but no one was worried. Not until Nick heard the scuffle behind them. He turned and saw the man running off with one of the girls, Four. He turned and took chase, sprinting like his life depended on it. The man was panicked, waddling fast, fighting with Four and fighting for balance. Nick started yelling. He had his gun out. The transient dropped Four and made a run for it. Nick put two rounds in his back, the brazen son of a—
“You okay?” he asked Four, who was terrified and sobbing. Four was a cute kid, and this was going to screw her up more so than anything else. He hugged her tight and she held on to him like her life depended on it.
A gunshot rang out, and a round shattered the window of the Benjamin Moore building right behind him. Three more shots cut through the air as Marcus shot back. Nick dropped down, pulled Four into his arms, lady-bugged it until Marcus said they were clear.
“Jesus Christ in heaven,” Nick said, startled himself. He’d just seen a kidnapping, partook in a killing, then nearly got shot to death in a gun battle he was sure he would not have won, if not for Marcus.
“You hit?” Marcus asked, standing over him.
Nick nodded his head, then said, “Four? You okay?”
Lots of sniffling, but a nodding head. Maria was there, by Nick’s side, gorgeous, worried eyes trying to get around him to see about her child.
“Four?” she said.
“I’m f-f-fine, Miss Maria,” Four said.
Maria swept the child up, frowned at Nick and Marcus, then said, “I thought you would have kept a better eye on her!”
“Sorry, Miss Maria,” Nick said sarcastically. Marcus just frowned and watched the back of her head as if he wanted to say something.
“Sorry, Miss Maria,” he teased under her breath, then both of them looked at each other and almost started laughing.
“Well the hell is her damage?” Nick asked under his breath and still sitting down on the curb.
“She’s puckering extra tight today,” Bailey practically whispered, giving Nick a hand and pulling him up.
Nick noticed her strength coming back and was grateful for their friends back in Loomis. She would have died if not for them. They all would have. Now that Bailey was restored to near full health, he saw parts of her personality returning. He also felt an incredible pull toward her, one she was starting to reciprocate.
They walked up the 82, also called El Camino Real, then took F Street just after the Woodlawn Memorial. F Street became D Street and then the 280 came into view. The 280 would take them into the city. By midday they reached Hwy 1 which would take them to 19th Ave and from there it was a straight shot into San Francisco.
The scenery was pretty bad, but they made good time. All the way up the streets, there were downed drones, demolished cars and homeless people wandering about. They walked past destroyed homes and packs of dogs (some of them sniffing around the dead), and several huge piles of burnt bodies. They always knew when they were getting near the body piles because the distinct smell of rot hung in the air like a low, burnt fog. Around Sloat Blvd the sun hit the horizon and Maria finally said, “The kids are exhausted. I think we should find a place before the sun goes down.”
“We’re not that far from my home,” Nick said. “If you can make the walk, we can finish today and take tomorrow off.”
“How many blocks?” Maria asked. She had not an ounce of emotion to tell them one way or the other if she thought this was a good idea. Up ahead, One was looking at the bottom of her shoes and seeing the start of holes.
“Ten, fifteen blocks, something like that,” Nick said.
“Which is it, ten or fifteen?” Maria asked.
“More than ten, less than fifteen,” Nick responded. It turned out to be fourteen blocks. The entire trip should have taken them forty minutes, an hour tops, but the kids were wiped out, and it was nearly black outside save for a three quarter moon, which gave them enough light to make out the shadows of cars, bodies and other obstructions.
When they got onto Kirkham and then 24th Street, Nick started to see the destruction in his neighborhood. Fire had torn through it, stilling his already hammering heart. When he saw his house with the roof caved in, half the structure gone, his knees grew weak and something of a moan escaped him. Even worse, there was a slew of dead bodies rotting outside the front door. Nick walked through them, didn’t see his daughter, then moved up toward the porch. Bailey tried to reach for his hand, but he pulled it away, his eyes already starting to water.
All this time, he’d had this vision of coming back to his home, finding Indigo safe and sound, finding it standing the way it had always stood: old, proud, strong.
Alas, this was not the case.
He walked up the porch in a daze, saw the front of the house charred but intact. It was peppered with bullet holes so bad it looked like someone had opened up on it with a Gatling gun. There were more dead bodies up there, none of them Indigo. He put his fingers in the holes, tried to see through flooded eyes. He knew he needed to go inside, try to find his daughter, but how could he do that? What would he find? Would she be burnt to death? Shot to death?
He couldn’t take that.
Marcus was suddenly beside him, as was Bailey. Marcus knelt down, picked up a piece of cardboard, turned it over.
“You got that lighter, Bailey?” he asked.
Bailey produced a small lighter, which he flicked into a bright flame. The rudimentary note said she was alive and headed to the city college on A
shbury and Hayes. Nick’s heart went into overdrive and he felt like he could breathe again.
“She could still be alive,” he said, a huge sigh of relief. “And that’s not far from here.”
“We need a place to sleep,” Maria said, seemingly unconcerned. Most of the kids were sitting down across the street, trying not to look at the bodies. Five and Three were walking around one specific corpse, whispering amongst themselves.
Boys…
“Find the nearest house that’s not burnt down and go from there,” Nick said to Maria, not looking at her, but instead re-reading the note on the cardboard.
“What are you going to do?” Bailey asked Nick.
“You know what he’s going to do,” Marcus told her. Then to Nick: “You want to go there now, right?”
“I do,” he said. Then, clearing his head, he said, “But first let’s help Maria and the kids get settled. We also need to find accommodations for ourselves since Plan A is blown.”
“What was Plan A?” Bailey asked.
“Not having my house practically burnt down,” he said.
The eleven of them walked the rest of the block down to Judah, took a right, then another right on 23rd where they scoured the block. They found quite a few homes that weren’t burnt. They chose one that looked suitable, knocked and waited, and then Marcus kicked in the front door. Marcus and Nick cleared the house while Bailey, Maria and the kids waited outside.
When the house was cleared, Marcus said, “Crack a few windows, we need to air this place out.” The good thing was, no one was dead inside. What stunk was the food in the fridge. They’d clean it out in the morning, but for now they had a place to stay, plenty of blankets and a big couch with a pullout.
Nick ushered them all in and said, “There are two bedrooms, both with Queen beds, and a couch that will hopefully sleep the rest of the kids.”
“What are you going to do?” Maria asked.
“See if we can find another place on the block, then let you know where we’ll be when we get back from helping Nick at the school.”
